Edward MacDowell eBook

With the exception of the “Tragica,” the
poetic substratum of the sonatas has been avowed with
more or less particularity. In the “Tragica”—­his
first essay in the form—­he has vouchsafed
only the general indication of his purpose which is
declared in the title of the work, though it is known
that in composing the music MacDowell was moved by
the memory of his grief over the death of his master
Raff (it might stand even more appropriately as a
commentary on the tragedy of his own life). The
tragic note is sounded, with impressive authority
and force, in the brief introduction, largo maestoso.
The music, from the first, drives to the very heart
of the subject: there is neither pose nor bombast
in the presentation of the thought; and this attitude
is maintained throughout—­in the ingratiating
loveliness of the second subject, in the fierce striving
of the middle section, in the noble and sombre slow
movement,—­a largo of profound pathos
and dignity,—­and in the dramatic and impassioned
close (the scherzo is, I think, less good). Of
this final allegro an exposition has been vouchsafed.
While in the preceding movements, it is said, he aimed
at expressing tragic details, in the last he has tried
to generalise. He wished “to heighten the
darkness of tragedy by making it follow closely on
the heels of triumph. Therefore, he attempted
to make the last movement a steadily progressive triumph,
which, at its close, is utterly broken and shattered,
thinking that the most poignant tragedy is that of
catastrophe in the hour of triumph.... In doing
this he has tried to epitomise the whole work.”
The meaning of the coda is thus made clear:
a climax approached with the utmost pomp and brilliancy,
and cut short by a precipitato descent in octaves,
fff, ending with a reminiscence of the portentous
subject of the introduction. It is a profoundly
moving conclusion to a noble work—­a work
which Mr. James Huneker has not extravagantly called
“the most marked contribution to solo sonata
literature since Brahms’ F-minor piano sonata”;
yet it is not so fine a work as any one of the three
sonatas which MacDowell afterward wrote. The
style evinces, for the first time in his piano music,
the striking orchestral character of his thought—­yet
the writing is not, paradoxical as it may seem, unpianistic.
The suggestion of orchestral relationships is contained
in the massiveness of the harmonic texture, and in
the cumulative effect of the climaxes and crescendi.
He conveys an impression of extended tone-spaces,
of a largeness, complexity, and solidity of structure,
which are peculiar to his own music, and which presuppose
a rather disdainful view of the limitations of mere
strings and hammers; yet it is all playable:
its demands are formidable, but not prohibitive.

[Illustration (Score): FACSIMILE OF A PORTION
OF THE MS. OF THE “SONATA TRAGICA”]